I’m Not a Doctor…

“I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.”  This line originated in a Vicks Formula 44 commercial with Chris Robinson (Dr. Rick Weber on General Hospital) assuring us that we couldn’t buy anything more effective.  It’s a tagline that is still familiar to some, but it seems in the present day, it is more fitting to say, “I’m not a doctor, but I’ve diagnosed my medical condition by way of a series of Google searches.”  Several individuals I know have followed treatment, self-prescribed, via internet information.

One such couple we know, I’ll call them Sam and Sheila, used this method in diagnosing her knee pain.  They visited WebMD, mayoclinic.com, and joined a Facebook page dedicated to meniscus tears.  They learned all they felt they needed to know about her ‘diagnosis’, but finally made an appointment with her doctor – only because they determined an MRI was in order.  (They told us if they could have scheduled an MRI without her doctor, they would have.  Not joking.)  Guess what?  Sheila didn’t have a torn meniscus.  Well, you could have knocked them over with a feather!  I don’t remember now what the final diagnosis was, but in the end, she let the doctor talk her into his recommended course of action and she is now good as new.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am a strong proponent of ‘doctoring’ at home and not making an appointment at the first sign of discomfort.  I discussed this on one occasion with my own physician, and he shared with me that he has patients that call and want to see him if they wake up in the morning with a sore throat.  On the other end of the spectrum, he has patients that live with chest pain for two weeks before they begrudgingly call to make an appointment.  Here’s some free medical advice from my physician:  if you’re having continuing chest pain, call 911 or trot yourself off to the emergency room.

I like to think I fall somewhere in the middle ground.  I try to take care of myself at home for at least a week before heading off to the doctor’s office.  I imagine I get this from my upbringing.  Mom used to always say, “You’ll feel better in the morning.”  Not gonna lie, that was usually true.  I also have memories of a number of home treatments, specifically for cold/virus symptoms like sore throat, cough, stuffy nose.  I still find the smell of Vicks Vapo Rub comforting.  That vapo-rizing aroma transports me to my childhood bedroom, sitting under a blanket with a bowl of steaming hot water in my lap, a glob of Vick’s slowly melting away into the steam.  Mom also used to give me a teaspoon of Cheracol D for a croupy cough.  That was some good stuff.  Not sure my mom would have been dosing me with it if she had been able to look up the ingredients on the Googles.

Other home remedies that I survived, but don’t necessarily recommend to others include butter on a burn, mercurochrome on skinned knees, Noxema for sunburn, and smoke from a pipe blown directly into the ear to relieve an earache.  My dad gave up smoking cigarettes before I was born, but he almost seemed to delight in the occasional earache for the opportunity to break out his pipe.  Hmmm.   

I must admit, I’ve been pretty healthy during the last eighteen months despite the fact that we’ve all been living through a pandemic.  Clearly the old fashion advice of cover your cough and wash your hands is timeless.